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New homes on the North Shore

This is the Winnetka home that Ms. Pedersen and Mr. McGregor completed in late 2013. She said the site appealed to them because it’s not only on the lake but a short distance from their church.

PHOTO CREDIT: Dennis Rodkin

Laura Ricketts, co-owner of the Chicago Cubs with other members of her family, and her partner, Heidi Greathouse, paid $6.5 million for a 1.2-acre site in Wilmette in 2010. They are spending an additional $6.3 million to build this house, according to permits filed with the village. A representative of architecture firm Morgante Wilson previously said the home has about 9,500 feet of above-ground space, but it’s designed with several rooms on the lake side partially submerged into the sand, so an exact footage was not made available.

PHOTO CREDIT: Dennis Rodkin

Designed by the New York architecture firm Gluck+, this nearly complete Wilmette home presents a blank white box to the street, almost as if it’s an uncarved chunk of the lacy white Baha’i Temple across Sheridan Road. As the photo shows, the sides and rear are glassier, open to the lake views. Jack Ryan, head of 22nd Century Media, a chain of hyperlocal suburban newspapers, sold the vacant 1.3-acre piece of land to John and Sharon Watrous for $4.12 million in 2010, according to the Cook County Recorder of Deeds. Mr. Watrous, who owns Chicago Trading Co., did not respond to a request for comment. Permits say the house is about 13,000 square feet.

PHOTO CREDIT: Dennis Rodkin

The most expensive parcel of the eight lakefront sites is the 2.25-acre Kenilworth site that Matthew and Julie Halbower bought for $9.71 million in 2008. In 1966, the former house on the site was the home of U.S. Senate candidate Charles Percy and his family; during the campaign, one of Mr. Percy’s five children, 21-year-old Valerie, was murdered there. After Mr. Percy was elected, the family sold the home to Baxter president William Graham the next year, and it was from Mr. Graham’s estate that the Hallbowers bought. The tennis court is a remnant of the old estate. The Hallbowers did not respond to requests for comment.

PHOTO CREDIT: Dennis Rodkin

The one-acre site of a 1930 Tudor home in Winnetka was on the market for three years when Leo and Milena Birov bought it in May 2013 for $3.5 million, down from an original asking price of $4.95 million. Mr. Birov runs Heritage Luxury Builders; Ms. Birov is an @properties agent. Ms. Birov said this home is for the couple to live in; they moved from a 15,000-square-foot home they sold in 2013 for $12.7 million and will occupy this one’s 10,000 square feet when it’s finished. “I call this downsizing,” Ms. Birov joked. Permits say the construction cost is $1.7 million.

PHOTO CREDIT: Dennis Rodkin

Michael Hara, CEO of LTD Commodities LLC, a Bannockburn firm that operates online and catalog retail entities, is building this French-styled Winnetka palace on a parcel that used to hold a 23-room mansion built in the 1920s. The site, an acre and a half, was purchased in 1999 for $3.1 million, according to the Cook County Recorder of Deeds; construction didn’t begin until 2012. Permits filed with Winnetka say the home will be 19,000 square feet — not counting the two gatehouses out front — and cost $5.5 million to complete.

PHOTO CREDIT: Dennis Rodkin

What’s standing is a remnant of a home built in 1857 that three years later served as a temporary hospital for survivors of the wrecked steamship Lady Elgin. Behind it is the foundation of what permits say will be a 20,000-square-foot, $10 million home. The owners, whose names do not appear in public records, bought the site for $6.5 million in February 2011 from Edgar Jannotta, chairman of William Blair & Co., and his wife, Deborah.

PHOTO CREDIT: Dennis Rodkin

This 11,000-square-foot house on a wooded bluff in Glencoe was completed in the past few weeks. The owners, Susan and David Sherman, just closed the sale of their former home elsewhere in the village April 4 at $3 million, according to a listing. The Shermans got the 1.5-acre site for less than half its 2009 asking price of $9.95 million; they paid $4.58 million in March 2012. The house they replaced dated to 1896 and had been owned for seven decades by the family of Bruce MacLeish, president and chairman of Carson Pirie Scott & Co. Mr. Sherman, third-generation head of Deerfield real estate firm Sherman Residential, did not respond to a request for comment.

PHOTO CREDIT: Dennis Rodkin

A contemporary-styled home is going up on a two-acre Highland Park site for Michael Gamson, senior vice president of global sales for California-based LinkedIn Corp., and Alyse Gamson. The lot was assembled in 2012 by purchases of two properties, totaling $3.83 million. The home, which is approximately 10,000 square feet, was designed by architect Tom Shafer in a sleek contemporary style. Estimated construction costs are not available; the Gamsons could not be reached for comment.

PHOTO CREDIT: Dennis Rodkin

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